The desirability of a pill dispensing device is quite well recognized, particularly where certain timing problems are involved and where necessary to have the pills available periodically and on a regular basis without a purely automatic delivery. The concept which is revealed in this application, deals with making available pills for delivery in a sequential manner the pills being of the same or similar substantially identical size and available by suitable manipulation of a cartridge in which the said pills are contained, the cartridge desirably being small and in particularly advantageous circumstances supported in a wrist case of one kind or another which is unobtrusive and yet certainly will supply enough pills for the usual use during the daytime or when a person is not nearby a supply of pills kept in the usual types of containers.
In the prior art many such containers have been conceived wherein pills are positioned in alignment and available one at a time, some under spring pressure some not and others in open containers such as may be supported on a wrist or the like, but in any event not in a simple such arrangement as is contemplated by the inventors, which makes possible several different approaches to pill supply, that of buying them in bulk and positioning the pills one at a time in the necessary dispensing position or buying them already prepackaged and placing them in the dispensing device which is the subject of the invention.
The prior art contains such patents as that of Vreede, U.S. Pat. No. 4,171,753, Oct. 23, 1979, which discloses a holder for pills which is related to the instant invention but does not have the automatic dispensing arrangement although admittedly disclosing the columnar positioning thereof.
Innumerable other patents might be referred to but are no more pertinent than that, in the instant consideration, particularly when it is borne in mind that the concept of this invention involves unique arrangement of parts and elements which are not found in the prior art or in those references known to exist therein.
The patent of Aveni, U.S. Pat. No. 2,960,259, Nov. 15, 1960, discloses a pill container in one view which provides for the dispensing of a single pill at a time under spring pressure but again lacks the alignment of openings or the desirable attributes which the instant invention discloses.
Under the circumstances it is felt clearly proper to point out that the advance provided by the invention herein disclosed, consists in the provision of a pill container which is adapted to receive pills either in a prepackaged form or in fact one at a time and to maintain the same under spring pressure for feeding purposes. The container is intended to be reciprocated and by such reciprocation with respect to an outer housing against spring pressure is arranged to cause an ejector element to be triggered so to speak and when openings in the pill container and outer housing are in alignment the pill to be ejected therefrom.
In order to provide a suitable package, a protective cover may be supplied in which an opening is likewise formed, which when aligned with the other openings will permit the pill to be delivered. Further and finally since a wrist case is contemplated to be availed of, that likewise is provided with an opening in the cover thereof with which the various previously mentioned openings may be aligned and when suitable application of appropriate manipulation is applied to the container, the pill will be delivered one at a time therefrom.